This necessary and thought-provoking study brings together the organisational side of the world of the arts and the understanding of the many functions art fulfi lls in our culture. The author sets out to establish how the organisation of art worlds serves the functioning of the arts in society. The book is divided into three sections, the first of which presents a comparative study of approaches to the art world as practiced by Dickie, Becker, Bourdieu, Heinich, and Luhmann, among others. The second part focuses on the philosphical debates concerning 'aesthetic experience'. Besides Kant, scholars such as Gadamer, Foster, Shustermann, Schaeffer and Carroll come to the fore. In the third part, the author traces the consequences of these theoretical approaches for the organization of art world practices. In deze studie onderzoekt Hans van Maanen hoe de organisatie van kunstwerelden het functioneren van kunst in de maatschappij ondersteunt en mogelijk maakt. Hij bespreekt en vergelijkt verschillende benaderingen (van Dickie, Becker, Bourdieu, Heinich en anderen) op de kunstwereld. Vervolgens gaat hij in op het kunstfi losofi - sche debat en vooral de notie van de 'esthetische ervaring'. Naast Kant komen academici als Gadamer, Foster, Shustermann, Schaeffer en Carroll aan bod. Tot slot bespreekt hij de theoretische benaderingen in een praktischer kader. Zo wordt het belang hiervan voor de kunstwereld duidelijk.

In this challenging and erudite philosophical essay, the author argues that in art, belief in progress is still relevant, if not essential. The radical freedoms of postmodernism have had a crippling effect on art - more than ever before, art is in danger of becoming meaningless. Art can only acquire meaning through context, and the concept of progress is ideal as the primary criterion for establishing that context. History of art can be seen as a process of constant accumulation. Works of art comment on each other, enriching each other's meanings. These complex interrelationships lead to progress in both the sensibility of the observer and the significance of the works of art.

In this challenging and erudite philosophical essay, the author argues that in art, belief in progress is still relevant, if not essential. The radical freedoms of postmodernism have had a crippling effect on art - more than ever before, art is in danger of becoming meaningless. Art can only acquire meaning through context, and the concept of progress is ideal as the primary criterion for establishing that context. History of art can be seen as a process of constant accumulation. Works of art comment on each other, enriching each other's meanings. These complex interrelationships lead to progress in both the sensibility of the observer and the significance of the works of art. Alles in de kunst is in beweging. Tegelijkertijd lijkt met het eind van de avantgarde de grote stilstand te zijn ingetreden. Het veelbesproken einde van de kunst en het postmodernisme roepen veel twijfels op. In dit helder geschreven betoog onderzoekt de auteur een begrip dat door de tot cliche geworden afschaffing van de Grote Verhalen onzichtbaar is geworden: het vooruitgangsidee. Hij laat zien hoe dat idee in de achttiende eeuw opkomt, allesbepalend is tijdens de avantgarde en met het eind van de avantgarde ten onder gaat. Maarten Doorman pleit voor een kritische herwaardering van vooruitgangsbegrippen om de als zorgeloosheid vermomde vrijblijvendheid van het postmodernisme het hoofd te bieden. Arthur Danto: The end of art does not entail that there has not been genuine progress in the philosophy of art. Maarten Doorman's challenging and valuable study contributes to that progress, whether or not progress in art itself remains, as he argues, a tenable idea.

Brings together some of the most exciting recent scholarship on Asian literature and culture, emphasising East Asia yet extending to South Asia Combines original findings of interest to specialists with a clear style of writing and argumentation that makes the volume accessible and appealing to the general reader Brings to life a wide range of Asian literary and scholarly figures important in their time and remain relevant and yet whose significance has been poorly understood

How did painters and their public speak about art in Rembrandt's age? This book about the writings of the painter-poet Samuel van Hoogstraten, one of Rembrandt's pupils, examines a wide variety of themes from painting practice and theory from the Dutch Golden Age. It addresses the contested issue of 'Dutch realism' and its hidden symbolism, as well as Rembrandt's concern with representing emotions in order to involve the spectator. Diverse aspects of imitation and illusion come to the fore, such as the theory behind sketchy or 'rough' brushwork and the active role played by the viewer's imagination. Taking as its starting point discussions in Rembrandt's studio, this unique study provides an ambitious overview of Dutch artists' ideas on painting.

Most artists earn very little. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of aspiring young artists. Do they give to the arts willingly or unknowingly? Governments and other institutions also give to the arts, to raise the low incomes. But their support is ineffective: subsidies only increase the artists' poverty. The economy of the arts is exceptional. Although the arts operate successfully in the marketplace, their natural affinity is with gift-giving, rather than with commercial exchange. People believe that artists are selflessly dedicated to art, that price does not reflect quality, and that the arts are free. But is it true? This unconventional multidisciplinary analysis explains the exceptional economy of the arts. Insightful illustrations from the practice of a visual artist support the analysis.

Most artists earn very little. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of aspiring young artists. Do they give to the arts willingly or unknowingly? Governments and other institutions also give to the arts, to raise the low incomes. But their support is ineffective: subsidies only increase the artists' poverty. The economy of the arts is exceptional. Although the arts operate successfully in the marketplace, their natural affinity is with gift-giving, rather than with commercial exchange. People believe that artists are selflessly dedicated to art, that price does not reflect quality, and that the arts are free. But is it true? This unconventional multidisciplinary analysis explains the exceptional economy of the arts. Insightful illustrations from the practice of a visual artist support the analysis. Kunstenaars verdienen vaak weinig. Toch is er aan jonge kunstenaars geen gebrek! Nemen zij het beperkte financiële gewin voor lief of weten zij niet beter? De overheid levert een bijdrage om de lage inkomens te compenseren, maar door subsidies lijkt de armoede onder kunstenaars slechts toe te nemen. In deze onconventionele en multidisciplinaire studie analyseert fotograaf, schilder en econoom Hans Abbing de uitzonderlijke economie van de kunsten: wijden kunstenaars zich geheel belangenloos aan hun werk, of laten zij zich wel degelijk leiden door economische motieven.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been controversial from its beginning in the life of the French Visitationist nun Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), who established the devotion after a series of mystical visions of Christ. Under the leadership of Sister Sophie Barat, founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1800, the devotion was taken around the world in the course of the nineteenth century. Wherever it went, the devotion took the shape of an evolving visual culture. Even during Alacoque's lifetime, imagery was a fundamental part of practicing the devotion. The Sacred Heart of Jesus traces the unfolding visual biography of the Sacred Heart, showing how imagery and visual practice document the history of the devotion and the remarkable range of its evolution.

This book exploits a trove of original documents that have survived on the auctions organized by the Orphan Chamber of Amsterdam in the first half of the 17th century. For the first time, the names of some 2000 buyers of works of art at auction in the 29 extant notebooks of the Chamber have been systematically analyzed. On the basis of archival research, data have been assembled on the occupation of these buyers (most of whom were merchants), their origin (Southern Netherlands, Holland, and other), their religion, their year of birth, their date of marriage, the taxes they paid and other indicators of their wealth. Buyers were found to cluster in groups, not only by extended family but by occupation, religion (Remonstrants, Counter-Remonstrants) and avocation (amateurs of tulips and of porcelain, members of Chambers of Rhetoricians, and so forth). The subjects of the works of art they bought and the artists to which they were attributed (only the most important were attributed) are also analyzed. In the second part of the book on "Selected Buyers", three chapters are devoted to art dealers who bought at auction and four to buyers who had special connections with artists, including principally Rembrandt. To forge a link between the cultural milieu of Amsterdam in this period and the buying public, two chapters are given over to buyers who were either poets themselves or were connected with contemporary poets. As a whole, the book offers a penetrating insight into the culture of the Amsterdam elite in the 17th century.

Ton de Leeuw (1926-96) is probably one of the most influential composers at the crossroads between Eastern philosophy and Western technique. A one-time pupil of Olivier Messiaen's in Paris, throughout the latter years of his musical career he concentrated on the marriage of Western emphasis on action and tension, and the ethical function of music in Eastern traditions. The musical world of the twentieth century is a divided one. Numerous histories of it have been written, but few of the exceptional quality of de Leeuw's, who brought into his writing a lifetime of experience as a composer and scholar of music. His work is a lucid and impassioned discussion of the elements, structures, compositional principles and terminologies in modern music that can be regarded as most innovatory. This book is an excellent guide for anyone wishing to gain knowledge of the compositional technique and mentality, particularly university and conservatory students.

Ton de Leeuw (1926-96) is probably one of the most influential composers at the crossroads between Eastern philosophy and Western technique. A one-time pupil of Olivier Messiaen's in Paris, throughout the latter years of his musical career he concentrated on the marriage of Western emphasis on action and tension, and the ethical function of music in Eastern traditions. The musical world of the twentieth century is a divided one. Numerous histories of it have been written, but few of the exceptional quality of de Leeuw's, who brought into his writing a lifetime of experience as a composer and scholar of music. His work is a lucid and impassioned discussion of the elements, structures, compositional principles and terminologies in modern music that can be regarded as most innovatory. This book is an excellent guide for anyone wishing to gain knowledge of the compositional technique and mentality, particularly university and conservatory students.

Ships, the sea and the coast have always been popular pictorial motifs, even if marine painting did not become established as an independent genre until the end of the sixteenth century in the Netherlands. Among the painters for whom maritime motifs played an important role even earlier is Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525/30-1569), the greatest Netherlandish painter of the sixteenth century. In this context, the grandiose harbour view in Bruegel's painting "The Tower of Babel" (1563) is particularly worthy of mention, as two different phases of harbour development are juxtaposed here: on the one hand the wharf, entirely void of dock constructions, a relic from the earliest stages of harbour development and still prevalent in the Early Middle Ages, on the other hand the harbour of the Late Middle Ages / Early Modern Times, dominated as it was by the shoreline quay with its typical cargo-handling gear (heavy-duty crane, whip-and-skid devices, winches). While the harbour facilities of Antwerp - where Bruegel lived and worked for many years - will have served him as a model for quayage in the highly developed form of a well-fortified fortress, the rural environment of his native Flanders will have provided him with a wealth of visual aids for the more primitive harbour form, the wharf. Excellent descriptions of historical harbour types are now and then to be found in fictional literature. Thomas Mann (1875-1955) for example, in his novel cycle Joseph and his Brothers (1948), or Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (1825-1898) in his novel Jürg Jenatsch (1874) both brought the shoreline market to life, an archaic harbour form in which the harbour and the market are an indivisible unit, both spatially as well as operationally. Both market scenes take place in out-of-the-ordinary times and places: In Thomas Mann's trilogy the setting is provided by the Upper Egyptian pharaoh city of Thebes in the middle of the second millennium B.C., in C.F. Meyer's work it is Lake Como on the southern edge of the Alps at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. By dint of their exceptional powers of intuition, both authors succeed in staging the characteristic atmosphere of a typical waterside market with great mastery. Each in his own way and with his own artistic means, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Thomas Mann and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer all created concordant images of certain specific historical harbour forms - the wharf, the waterside market, the Early Modern shore quay. While artistic designs such as these cannot replace the precise methods of science, they are nevertheless capable of making a welcome contribution to the vivid visualisation of historical harbour development.

Collecting, preserving and promoting cultural goods, whether fine art, archaeological objects or decorative arts, is now global. Oddly, rules and practices have remained very local, save for ICOM's efforts at the institutional level and UNESCO's endeavours to help preserve national cultural heritage and combat illicit trafficking. This book is designed to help the collector and their advisers navigate the maze on an international level. Each chapter of this book addresses a number of issues from the perspective of a different jurisdiction to help collectors making errors that could be potenitally illegal. The format of the chapters follow a question and answer style thus enabling readers to make quick and accurate comparisons in multiple jurisdictions covering property law, insurance, customs, tax, inheritance, intellectual property and more